There are times, usually on those starlit nights, when one realises the insignificance of his own self in the context of the cosmos’ vast expanses. But then one sees events around him, considers his own actions, the effects it has on others, and the butterfly effect that starts from then on, and realises his significance.
until next time, signatures in the annals of time
Continuing from what i wrote earlier, the social networks we’re familiar with (assuming you don’t use our friendly neighbourhood sites – cyworld, qq, mixi) have a revenue mix of ads and virtual goods. However, as the chart below will show you, this is not the only way to monetise a social network, as the chart below will show you.
Courtesy – http://www.plus8star.com/
Now, should that make our familiar networks hmm, disoriented? :D. Not exactly, because the population is there, even if its lesser than the other sites. The word of caution, is that the audience reaction to monetisation can never really be predicted.
Social media is indeed popular, though it is felt that it lacks metrics which are so important for monetisation.That however, has not stopped brands from using the networks in a variety of ways. From making groups to building applications and so on, brands have cashed in on the network’s popularity to hook the customer on one more platform. This, for example is a post on social media marketing strategies.
The common newspaper ad sales motto is that they lease their relationship with their customers to paying third parties. While the digital scene has diverged from traditional media in a lot of ways, I’m not quite sure why this can’t be made true for social media. I agree that a lot of applications are also a value addition to the site since they keep the visitors glued, but that can’t be the case always.
For instance, look at this application on Facebook by Coca Cola. I doubt if Facebook is making any money from Coke. But the basic questions are ‘Whose platform is Coke using?’ and ‘Whose audience is Coke using?’. And so, why can’t this be a way for Facebook to make money? By all means, allow developers to make applications, but if brands are involved, no harm in asking them to pay. Use part of the revenues to keep users happy by providing better features. That’d be the icing.
until next time, socialism 2.0
I read a couple of posts which made me think about this issue – social media’s role in the human mind’s evolution. What started out on a tangential note here (tangential only because of the context change, on its own its definitely a compelling thought) was given this direction here.
The idea as expressed quite clearly in the first post’s title is ‘has asking become a substitute for thinking?’ The second post takes it on further and explains how asking for information, that otherwise ‘almost redundant’ info which could have been easily gathered anyway, is asked for, and not gathered, thanks to the proliferation of networks like Twitter.
Well, this ‘asking’ has been a common phenomenon in the workplace for quite some time, in the garb of ‘info sharing’ and otherwise, only with the advent of the web, the questions are now asked to a collective, the vast expanses of the www. It reminds of something I’d read a while back which basically said that if God could be equated to a collective consciousnes, then perhaps the internet is our first baby step towards reaching God. And if that is the case, then (like i commented in the second post) this outsourcing of info collection to a collective is perhaps a way of evolving i.e. by crunching the time for ‘lower’ level problems, we will find more resources to tackle the bigger riddles of life. But that could be just wishful thinking,eh?
Meanwhile, if the crowd is going to supply the info, then it becomes all the more important for brands to be tuned in and be able to ensure that the crowd has enough data, and the right emotions towards the brand. Because going by this trend, the new age consumer will stop doing what he does these days – painstakingly gather information about his next purchase.
until next time, click away
A few days back, it was announced that Airtel and Google had come together to launch Airtel Live. Since I’ve not been there myself, I’ll take their word for it in terms of quality and the value for customers. Sometime back, the launch of Google search on Airtel had helped a lot of TV channel sales guys meet their targets. 🙂
Around the same time, there was also the news of Yahoo and Reliance continuing their association with oneSearch being made available on Reliance. Yahoo Mail and Yahoo messenger were already available. Other services that users can avail of are financial news, Yahoo Answers, Flickr, Wikipedia etc. Its relevant to note that Yahoo also has deals going on with Idea, BSNL among others. At this stage, I’m guessing that this is only applicable to GPRS sets. Meanwhile, its also interesting to note that Reliance’s IPTV dreams will be powered by Microsoft’s platform, though with the dismal broadband penetration, this is a very long term game.
So, what we’re seeing is good old convergence, not just of content and platforms, but the providers also. AOL, Rediff- anything happening yet? Reliance has been releasing its blog ads for sometime now. Its quite a neatly made ad, which keeps the message simple. And for the last couple of days, I’ve seen a new ad being aired (damn page refuses to load, though), one thats co branded- Reliance and Yahoo, and thats for messenger. Its again a very simple, neat ad, which clearly succeeds in communicating the message. There’s also some (though not very large) push being given by Yahoo online though a contest where you can win Moto handsets by logging on to YM through your Reliance mobile.
So Reliance will blog on its own and use Yahoo for services, for which Yahoo has already made a name for itself. Smart. I wonder where all this is going though? Moblogging has been on for quite sometime, without any of these guys being involved. While this may help broaden the base of bloggers (thanks to the Reliance reach), is there a value add that I get by choosing Reliance blogs over say, blogger? The SMS, MMS also cost a bit, anyway. So, I wonder… Anyone care to educate?
until next time, a digital maze